Orthography

The art or practice of writing words with the proper letters, according to common usage; spelling. That part of grammar which treats of the nature and properties of letters, and of the art of writing words correctly.  (Webster, 1882)

 The wranglers can never agree among themselves, whether orthography shall conform to pronunciation, or pronunciation to orthography...  – Samuel U. Berrian, The Grammar of English Grammars (New York: William Wood and Company, 1851), 160.

One of the subjects on which Laura Ingalls was tested in order to obtain a teaching certificate was orthography, or spelling. Orthography comes from the Greek orthós (meaning "correct") and gráphein (meaning "to write"). Although orthography is often used in place of spelling, spelling is only a part of orthography. Simply put, orthography is the study of letters (vowels and consonants), their forms (whether capitals or lower case), syllables (one or more letters pronounced as a sound), words (whether primitive or derivative, simple or compounds, and spelling.

The 1883 Laws of the Common Schools of Dakota, or An Act to Establish and Provide for the Maintenance of a General and Uniform System of Common Schools and to Improve their Usefulness, listed only the subjects a teacher was to be tested on, not the content of the test itself. These subjects included orthography, reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, English language and grammar, and United States history (Section 16, page 10).

It is not known what words Laura was asked to spell, or whether the test was oral or written. Laura's grade was 75% on her certificate dated December 10, 1883, earned prior to teaching the Bouchie School. Laura's April 8, 1885, certificate earned prior to teaching the Wilkin School has faded to the point that her test scores are no longer legible.

The spelling of words has long been a subject of debate and the common spelling of words often changes over the years. The following appeared in Godey's Lady's Book and Magazine; note that the American Philological Association (APA) still exists. It was founded in 1869 by "professors, friends, and patrons of linguistic science." Originally its members studied a great variety of texts and languages, but the APA  is now the principal learned society in North America for the study of ancient Greek and Roman languages, literatures, and civilizations.

The system, or rather the utter lack of system, of English spelling is the great misfortune of our language. It has other defects, but these are counter-balanced by great excellences. In favor of the mode in which its sounds are represented, there is nothing whatever to be said. In every respect—in the waste of time at school, in the mortification and annoyance suffered in after life from mistakes in spelling and pronunciation, in the difficulty which foreigners experience in learning the language, this defect is an unmixed evil. The more widely education is diffused, the more the evil is felt.

Many attempts have been made at various times to reform the orthography of the language, but they have been isolated efforts, and in most cases guided rather by enthusiasm than by judgment. They have served, however, to draw attention to the subject, and to deepen the sense of the mischiefs which are suffered from this cause. There seems reason now to hope that the subject will be taken up by an authority which will be able to deal with it to good effect. The American Philological Association comprises in its list of two hundred members many of the most distinguished linguists in our country, including professors of nearly all our leading colleges, and other eminent instructors, qualified to treat a question of this sort with practical efficiency. The President of the Association, Francis A. March, well known as the author of an excellent Anglo-Saxon grammar, and other philological works of great value, has expressed, in his annual address, the opinions generally entertained on this subject, with a force and point which cannot easily be excelled. He remarks:—

"Spelling is often thought of as child's work, and of little serious moment; but it is by no means so. The time lost by it is a large part of the whole school-time of the mass of men, and with a large majority of those who are said to read, and who can read if you give them time, it is a fatal bar through life to that easy and intelligent reading which every voter, every human being, ought to have at command. Count the hours which each man wastes in learning to read at school; the hours which he wastes through life from the hindrance to easy reading; the hours wasted at school in learning to spell; the hours spent through life in keeping up and perfecting this knowledge of spelling; in consulting dictionaries, a work that never ends; the hours that are spent in writing silent letters; and multiply this time by the number of persons who speak English, and we shall have a total of millions of years wasted by each generation. The cost of printing the silent letters of the English language is to be counted by millions of dollars for each generation Who has not heard the groans of Germans or Frenchmen trying to learn how our words sound, or read the petitions of the Japanese?"

Professor March brushes aside, with the authority of a scholar, the objection to this reform which is sometimes urged by "literary amateurs," who suggest that the irregularities of spelling are of advantage to the study of etymology. So far is this from being the truth that, as he remarks, "a changeless orthography destroys the material for etymological study," and, in fact, "written records are valuable to the philologist just in proportion as they are accurate records of speech as spoken from year to year." In view of the advantage of combined action, he presses the hope that the association which he addressed might, as a great, popular organization of linguistic scholarship, "attain an influence which may give it powers of reform as yet unsuspected."

The English language is now spoken by a greater number of people than speak any other tongue, except the Chinese; and is seems likely to become the dominant language of the globe. If, through the influence which Professor march suggests, the unfortunate orthography of the language, which chiefly prevents its diffusion and general usefulness, can be amended, it may be that its great merits of simplicity of grammar, richness of vocabulary, and power of expression, will bring it into general use as the medium of communication among all civilized nations. In this way the association may be the means of conferring a benefit of common order upon the world of humanity.  — Editor, Godey's Lady's Book and Magazine XCI (July 1875), 89.

Copyright © 2009 by Nancy Cleaveland - All Rights Reserved.